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Wednesday, January 6, 2016

NFL road favorites and divisional rubber matches

By Kyle Ross (posted by Rick Morris)

When examining this week’s NFL Wild Card matchups,
the first thing that should jump out at you is that three of the four road
teams opened as favorites: Kansas City by three at Houston (and likely headed
to -3.5), Pittsburgh is either -2.5 or -3 at Cincinnati, depending on your
book, and Seattle at one point was as high as minus six at Minnesota.

Only the fourth matchup of the weekend, Green Bay at
Washington, where the host opened -1 (and who would have ever thought
Washington would be favored in this spot?!) is exempt from the road favorite
trend (Editor’s Note: Not anymore!). Though the public’s typical infatuation
with the Packers has somewhat waned in recent weeks, it wouldn’t be altogether
shocking to see them get bet to chalk status as well (Editor’s Note: They
were!)

What does recent history tell us about road
favorites in the NFL playoffs, more specifically the Wild Card round? Read on!

The league realigned to its current eight division
alignment prior to the start of the 2002 season, thus (slightly) altering its
playoff format as well. There are now four division winners per conference
(previously only three) along with just two Wild Cards (previously three) and
there’s been an obvious trend of weaker division winners since the change.Since 2009, there have been four division
winners that finished the regular season with eight losses. (Ironically, all four
WON their respective WC games!). That’s more than there were in the previous 45
years of the Super Bowl era.

So, in “modern times,” it has certainly become more
commonplace to have the road team favored come playoff time. While still rare
in the Divisional Round and Conference Championship Games, there have been 13
road favorites in the Wild Card round since 2003 (out of a possible 52 games).
So that’s 25 percent or an average of one per year. Last season was only the
third time under the “new” format (2003, 2007) that there wasn’t a single road
team favored in the WC round. Obviously, with there being three more this year,
the average and percent increase.

There being three road favorites this year would not
be without precedent (it happened in ’09 with two of the three chalk teams
covering). However, all four road teams being favored would be a first!

Factoring out the three times where a team was bet
to the role of road favorite (meaning they opened as the underdog) plus the two
WC favorites of a TD or more – New Orleans in 2011 and Pittsburgh in 2012 –
there have been eight times where a team has opened and closed as a road
favorite of 3.5 points or less. Those teams are a strong 6-1-1 against the
spread, all taking the game straight up. Provided the respective lines stay “as
is,” that certainly doesn’t bode well for either Houston or Cincinnati does it?

As for Seattle, they currently stand as the third
largest road favorite we’ve ever had in WC round. They may be in a bit more
trouble. You’ll recall I earlier referenced New Orleans in 2011 and Pittsburgh
in 2012, both of whom were asked to lay more than a TD for their Wild Card
games. They ended up suffering two of the more infamous losses in playoff
history, the Saints losing in Seattle in the game that turned Marshawn Lynch
into a household name and the Steelers lost in overtime to You Know Who.

There’s another handicapping factor that I wanted to
investigate for this weekend and that involves divisional rubber matches. The
Steelers-Bengals matchup on Saturday night marks the 17th time
(again going back to ’03) we’ve had division rivals face one another in the
playoffs (any round). What’s interesting about this particular instance is that
the road team won both regular season meetings – Cincinnati 16-10 in Pittsburgh
(Big Ben’s first game back after an injury that kept him out the previous four
games) and Pittsburgh 33-20 in Cincy (ironically the last game that Bengals QB
Andy Dalton played).

Looking back, there have been six previous instances
where the division foes each won on the other’s field during the regular
season. The good news for the Bengals is that the home team is 4-2 SU in such
instances, winning four of the last five. Unfortunately, the sixth (and
furthest back) is something that they won’t want to hear and that’s what
happened in 2006 when the Steelers came here and beat them 31-17, in the Wild
Card Round. (That was the game where Carson Palmer’s knee was injured by Kimo
von Oelhoffen on the very first offensive play from scrimmage).

Against the spread, the home teams in those six
games went only 2-4. Back in 2007, Philadelphia beat the Giants 23-20, but
failed to cover as seven-point favorites.Then in 2014, the last time we saw this situation present itself, Denver
had to hold on to beat San Diego 24-17 as 8.5-pt favorites.

Of course, what’s different about the present
situation with Pittsburgh and Cincinnati is that the road team is favored.
Unfortunately, I am going to again make Bengals fans cringe. There have been
only two times previous (again since ’03) where the road team was favored in a
playoff game between two division foes.The last time we saw this was in 2011 NFC Championship Game when Green
Bay (-3.5) went into Chicago and won 21-14 (Jay Cutler was injured early and
never returned).The other was these
Steelers coming in and beating these Bengals in the aforementioned von
Oelhoffen game, 31-17 laying three. Double ouch!

So, what does any of this mean? Well, if you do want
to bet Houston, I’d definitely wait to get “the hook” (+3.5).Kansas City, like Cincinnati, has an ugly
recent playoff history. They are 1-10 ATS their last 11 postseason games and
while their last win did come here in Houston, it was against the Oilers all
the way back in 1993 (Joe Montana started that game!). That was a really good
Oilers team, by the way. (It was the same year defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan
punched offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride on the sidelines).

History certainly seems to be against the Bengals,
who are 0-6 SU/ATS in playoff games under Marvin Lewis. But, overall, they have
had a better season than the Steelers.Going into that 2006 playoff game, Pittsburgh had a significantly better
point differential than Cincinnati (+131 compared to +71) while this year that
particular metric favors the Bengals (+140 to +104).

This is actually just the third time ever in the
Wild Card round that the road favorite has a worse YTD point differential
compared to the home dog. The two
previous times have seen the home dog go 2-0 ATS with one outright upset, an
8-8 Chargers team over the Colts in 2009, and the Steelers just squeaked inside
the 2.5-point spot vs. Jacksonville the year prior, losing 31-29.

Over in the NFC, the Seahawks are probably too good
to have the same misfortune fall upon them that we saw with the 2011 Saints and
2012 Steelers. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Vikings keep this game
closer than expected.As for the game
I’ve barely mentioned (Green Bay-Washington), you’ll might want to fade the
Packers if they do get bet to favoritism as the three times a WC road favorite
opened up as the dog, they lost outright all three times.(Note: I’m still backing the Pack!)